A Scholarly Discernment of the Peterson Phenomenon: strengths, weaknesses, what it says about our cultural situation, where he fits philosophically in comparison with great minds like Charles Taylor, Paul Ricoeur, Victor Frankl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, Søren Kierkegaard, Northrop Frye, René Girard, John Milbank, Chantal Delsol, Bernard Lonergan, Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Kearney, George Grant, Jens Zimmermann, C.S. Lewis, the Church Fathers. Students are hungry these days for wise and authentic public intellectuals to help them make sense of the world they inhabit. Negotiating late modernity is not for the faint of heart.
Panel Discussion on Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life”:
A Response to the Millennial Crisis of Identity
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St. John’s College Lounge, UBC
Thursday, November 15 @ 7:00 p.m.
Panel Moderator: Dr. David Ley, Professor Emeritus Geography, UBC; Fellow of St. John’s College
Panelists:
Marvin McDonald is a professional psychologist, faculty member at Trinity Western University, a writer whose work engages theoretical psychology and positive psychology. A gracious interlocutor, Marvin loves dialogue across different worldview perspectives. He believes in a creative interface between philosophy and psychology, and articulates responses to his graduate student inquiries from a vast landscape of knowledge and insight.
Ron Dart teaches in the Department of Political Science, Philosophy and Religious Studies at University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, BC. He is the most important writer about the Red Tory tradition in Canada with thirty-five published books, including the recent notable The North American High Tory Tradition. He has also written extensively on one of Canada’s top public intellectuals, George Grant. Ron is also a poet and a back country hiker. He has a number of YouTube videos on the Peterson phenomenon and is presently editing a book on Jordan Peterson.
Gordon Carkner, a meta-educator with graduate students and faculty at UBC: GFCF (The Forum) & GCU which sponsor interdisciplinary educational forums like this one. He mentors students in a robust, well-rounded outlook on education. He has authored two books and co-authored one, most notably The Great Escape from Nihilism: rediscovering our passion in late modernity, a book which parallels the theme of the quest for meaning in Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life. His PhD work was on the crisis of the late modern self, a dialogue between Michel Foucault and Charles Taylor.
Registration: ubcgcuevents@gmail.com
Fowers, B. J., Richardson, F. C., & Slife, B. D. (2017). Frailty, suffering, and vice: Flourishing in the face of human limitations. Washington, DC: APA Books.
Carr, D., Arthur, J., & K. Kristjánsson, K. (Eds.) (2017). Varieties of virtue ethics. London: Palgrave/MacMillan.
Worthington, E. L., et al. (2014). Virtue in positive psychology. In K. Timpe & C. A. Boyd (Eds.), Virtues and Their Vices (pp. 433-457). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
12 Rules for Life: Like Russian author Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, whom he much admires, Jordan Peterson believes that we are not in this world to pursue happiness, to be entertained, but for moral growth, to grow in the virtues, to become attentive and take responsibility for our part in the larger scheme of things. This offers a more hermeneutical outlook or social imaginary, one which authenticates human subjectivity and the quest for purpose and meaning. Philosopher Bernard Lonergan has parallel concerns in his Principles of Self-Transcendence.
- Be Attentive: pay attention to what is happening around you
- Be Intelligent: examine your assumptions, reflect, self-criticise
- Be Reasonable: speak carefully and listen carefully to others
- Be Responsible: own your part in the greater scheme and take responsibility for yourself
Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life has captured the imagination of many who hunger for a hopeful way forward in a confusing age of uncertainties. He is directing people away from their nihilistic tendencies and towards a meaningful, productive existence. It cultivates a particular kind of identity, one grounded in basic and traditional principles of conscientious living. It is a book well worth engaging.
Firm but caring…Peterson speaks the way I always wished my father had….He is the right person at the right time, someone capable of showing you men that cleaning up their room has cosmic significance, and that imposing a little order upon chaos is good for the soul, which in turn is good for the world ~National Review
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